Crime and Punishment

A detailed Summary of Crime and Punishment

Crime and Punishment by Fydor Dostoyevsky has been hailed as the greatest literary work in the Western hemisphere. Crime and Punishment was written in pre-Communist Russia under the Tsar. Dostoyevsky's writing shows insight into the human mind that is at once frightening and frighteningly real. His main character, around who all other characters are introduced, is Rodion Romanovitch Raskolnikov.

Raskolnikov murders an old pawnbroker woman for seemingly no reason at all. His sister and mother move to St. Petersburg following his sister's engagement to a man whom Raskolnikov was extremely displeased. Raskolnikov undergoes severe mental trauma, and falls ill after the killing. The reader isn't sure why Raskolnikov killed the woman, indeed it appears that Raskolnikov didn't know himself. He is surrounded by friends and his family and draws in other characters to him during his illness. He befriends a woman, Sofya Seymonavitch, who prostitutes herself to support her mother and her drunken father. As the police come closer onto his trail Raskolnikov faces serious threats to his sister from her two suitors, one of which tries to rape her and kills himself after he finds that he can't bring himself to. At the end Raskolnikov gives himsel

f up, and gives his family into the care of his friend Rauzumihin, who marries Raskolnikov's sister Douina. Dostoyevsky exposes the darkest sides of human nature in with characters that are completely human. The tale Dostoyevsky weaves is a murder mystery, with the murderer and all the facts of the murder known in the very first pages of the book.

When Douina came to Svidrigailov, he attempted to rape her, only to find that he could not bring himself to. He let her go free, and shot himself. We are at once revolted and then pity this man. Here is the character in the book who is possibly the most evil, but he cannot commit the act which would make him the clear and undoubtable antagonist. He finds out that after all his wickedness, he has some good in him. He kills himself in a fit of shame after finding out that he is not all bad. The reader again is forced to ask, could this human who commits these evil deeds be considered anything but the "bad guy"? The answer is yes. Svidrigailov for all his wickedness still retained a spark of humanity, a spark of human dignity and sense, and yes, human love. The reader might loathe Svidrigailov, but cannot condemn him. Yet another of Dostoyevsky's parellel's to the ongoing moral conflict on accepting Raskolnikov.

How then can it be a murder mystery? The mystery is finding out why Raskolnikov committed the crime. Western minds want desperately to see some sense of right and wrong, a clear cut "good guy", and an evil nasty "bad guy". Dostoyevsky gives the reader no such comfort. The reader wants to see Raskolnikov have some good excuse for killing the old woman, some sense of moral justification of the act so we can turn his accusers into "bad guys" and himself and his friends the "good guys". The reader gets nothing of the sort, Crime and Punishment is no fairy tale. The su

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Approximate Word count = 1232
Approximate Pages = 5 (250 words per page double spaced)

Category: Novels